I was at the New Zealand wine fair last week and there was a table of Sauvignon BLancs designed to show you the differences between various parts of Marlborough. Well, if there were differences, they were too subtle for my barbarian palate. I'm fed up of them all at this stage - does anybody out there have any interesting ones? Something that isn't the usual glass of pungenttropicalgrassyblahblah? No oaked suggestions, please, they are really pointless.
While I am giving out about New zealand wines, I heard the other day that about 150,000 cases of New Zealand wine were sold in Ireland. I thought that was pretty good until I heard that Oyster Bay Sauvignon Bland made up 90,000 of those cases. How depressing is that? The hilarious thing is that I'm sure it sells so well because it reminds people of Cloudy Bay....
But don't worry, I still love Felton Road (Central Otago, not a Sauvignon in sight) and Muddy Water (Waipara, amazing Riesling).
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3 comments:
Gabriel,
I'll have to agree with you on this one. I haven't managed to blog on it yet but I went along to this last week aswell and was decidedly underwhelmed...
The gloss has come off NZSB and I'm afraid it's at risk of tarnishing the whole wine industry in NZ. Reliance on one style of easily replicable wine isn't a good thing if tastes change!
My favourite SB of the tasting was a tie between a sparkling SB and the Te Koko from Cloudy Bay, mainly because at least they showed a little different to the rest and were a little interesting.
Beyond that, the pinots on show for the most point were all young vines so were all easy drinking simple wines, how some can charge the prices they do is beyond me. Obviously there are exceptions to this, and the Ata Rangi on show really did dispell the myth that all NZ Pinot is simplistic (obviously Felton Road, Dry River and a number I have never heard of will follow the same route).
The sparkling wines on offer would have trouble competing with a good cava or prosecco but again cost too much.
I enjoyed a few chardonnays, but most wineries down there don't bother, and I've heard that some of the other aromatic varieties produce interesting wine too, so perhaps not all is lost.
Sorry about the rant,
Will
I think Rieslings and Pinot Gris are a bit more interesting, but as with anything I think it is best to find a producer who follows their own passion and the raw materials available rather than the majority who follow market demand ( and usually lag behind it by about 3 years).....
Very funny. It is something I say at home regularly, but not blogged about it. I am SICK of SB, particularly overblown NZ styles that seem to have lost any attempt at subtlety
I'm sure there are great wines out there, but the vast majority are hard to enjoy.
So, what's next?
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